by Ken Bruen
Like fuck.
I said,
“See Mrs. Fadden?”
“Indeed, a valued addition to our little soirees.”
I said,
“Stick it on her tab.”
I strolled over to the table where the ladies were deep in drink, the table a riot of color, every conceivable brand of cocktail, tiny umbrellas, fruit wedges.
Lurking from every glass, it looked like a Dalí piss-up.
Into the middle of this Technicolor mess I plonked my ugly black pint. It appeared like a shout.
One of the ladies, her eyes a tad the worse for wear, barked,
“Excuse me!”
I nodded at Amy, said,
“How’s it going, Amy?”
The others stared at her but she had nothing, so I said,
“Amy hired me to find who killed her daughter.”
That threw a somber note.
A lady to my left touched my arm, asked,
“And did you?”
I leaned over, took my pint, drank noisily, belched, said,
“Amy decided to frame me for it.”
Now there was utter silence.
All eyes on the bould Amy.
She rallied, said,
“It was all a terrible misunderstanding. Grief had me not knowing what was going on.”
There was a slight shift in orientation as two ladies moved a tiny distance from her. I said,
“But hey, all water under the bridge,
Like the mayor’s dead son.
But the good news, like a fine cocktail, is at the bottom.
You want to tell them, Amy, or will I? We found the killer of her daughter and guess what.”
Long pause, then,
“Amy killed him.”
Murmurings.
The lady to my left asked,
“Killed him?”
I looked at Amy, who seemed to have gone into a kind of toxic shock or else it was just the booze hitting hard.
I said, very clearly,
“Amy killed the boy.”
They all turned to Amy who was still as a prayer lost in translation.
I stood up, said,
“I’ll leave you ladies to your cocktails.”
*
I’d reached the bar and the bar guy glared at me. I asked him,
“You heard about the barman who was shot?”
He had decided to somehow find his balls while I’d been chatting with the ladies, snarled,
“So?”
Not a whole lot of sympathy there.
I added,
“By all accounts he was a nice guy.”
He shrugged, dismissing me, so I asked,
“Imagine what would happen to an asshole behind a bar?”
19
Duchess
Jessica
Selwyn
Rose
Over the years, I have had an embattled link to a priest.
Father Malachy.
A chain-smoking chancer who’d been my bitch mother’s pet priest.
Back in those days, pious women believed it enhanced their status to have a priest in thrall; nowadays it would be a downright crime.
I’d managed to save him from various scandals, trouble over the years—not from friendship but he had a knack of inveigling me to assist him, despite his continuous loathing of me.
You might describe it as a wholly Irish connection, certainly not holy, unless you implied a disgrace.
Few years back I had gotten hold of a notorious Red Book that the Church was anxious to suppress.
Malachy, in some new bother, persuaded me to give him the book, to redeem himself in the eyes of Mother Church.
Did it ever.
He was feted, celebrated, and was now bishop-in-waiting.
Was he grateful?
Was he fuck.
Did he acknowledge my help?
Guess.
So when I saw him leaning against a black BMW outside my apartment I was not happy. He was not smoking but otherwise had the same furtive air of the new clergy.
He greeted,
“Where the hell have you been, Taylor?”
I gave him my granite look, asked,
“You the bishop yet?”
He indicated my apartment, asked,
“Can we talk?”
He gave some instructions to the driver, who drove off. I said,
“Nice to be chauffeured.”
He snarled,
“He’s a cheeky bollix is what he is. Asked me not to smoke in the car.”
I had no sane answer to this.
We got inside. He plonked himself down on the sofa, asked,
“Jameson, no ice.”
He was such a cunt that it made me laugh, so I obliged. He smelled the glass, asked,
“You sure this is Irish?”
I asked,
“Would I lie to a priest?”
He waved that away, looked round, said,
“Bit of a dump.”
I said,
“’Tis penance.”
He smiled grimly, said,
“God knows you have enough sins for a parish.”
Then he pulled out a crumpled pack of Major, the strongest cig on the market, lit up, blew a near perfect smoke ring.
I asked,
“The point of your visit?”
He shifted, the sofa creaking under his weight as he flicked ash on what passed for carpet.
He clocked I wasn’t drinking, asked,
“Nothing for you?”
I gave him what I hoped was the current clerical smile, guile with a glint, said,
“Gave it up for the souls in Purgatory.”
He sneered, then snapped,
“You’re probably on drugs. Your sainted mother often said,
‘That pup is in on drugs.’”
I laughed, my beatific mom, who swallowed Valium like her daily intake of bile. He continued,
“She hoped and indeed prayed you’d die young.”
Jesus.
I said,
“Lovely as this little chat is, is there a point?”
He seemed to sag and then, as if he had to drag it from the depths, near whispered,
“I have a sister.”
He said it in the tone of a man who might say,
“I’ve only a day to live.”
He looked at me but I had, well, nothing, so he continued.
“Jessica Selwyn, you might have heard of her. She played the duchess in that U.S. version of Downton, made a shit pile of money and is now here in Galway.”
I asked,
“All sounds great. You must be proud.”
He roared,
“I’m fucking mortified.”
Oh.
He added,
“She’s a bloody head case.”
I countered,
“But a rich one helps a bit?”
He glared at me, said,
“You need to pay attention, she’s got a . . .”
He searched for a description.
“Young lover.”
I could see his bishop aspirations might be compromised, so I said,
“Not great for the image.”
He was wallowing in rage and spite, said,
“Doing interviews with her arm draped around who she calls her Galway girl.”
I’ll admit it took a moment for me to grasp the word and I echoed slowly,
“Girl?”
He was so enraged froth was leaking from the corners of his mouth. He shouted,
“Carpet biters. Not only is my sister a lesbian but she’s a cougar or whatever they call these oul wans who have young . . .”
Again, the hesitation as he reached for a word, then,
“Lovers.”
Truly nearly choked him.
Did I feel for him?
No.
I asked,
“Isn’t the Church into acceptance and all sorts of fake liberal shite?”
He
said,
“There’s that royal family thinking they have problems with the young lad marrying a black wan.”
Before I could get over Malachy being a royal watcher, he said,
“And the country’s going to legalize killing babies.”
I said to him,
“You once told me when I was in deep shite that I should pray for all parties.”
He looked at me in utter astonishment, said,
“Fuck that.”
He stood, crushed a butt under his clerical shoe, said,
“So I can rely on you, then?”
I asked,
“For what?”
He was annoyed, said,
“To fix it.”
“Fix it how?”
He muttered,
“Lord give me strength.”
Then,
“To get rid of the girl.”
By God, I was going to make him spell it out. I asked,
“Like kill her?”
He blessed himself, about as hypocritical an action as I’ve witnessed.
Said,
“God strike you mute, Taylor, for such a thought. Do one of those sly underhand things you’re famous for.”
Then he gave me his sister’s address, warned,
“You never met me.”
Right.
I asked,
“And the girl, the temptress, who is she?”
He spat the name.
“Calls herself Jericho.”
20
“We do have a zeal for laughter
In most situations—
Give or take a dentist.”
Joseph Heller
Stapleton never knew that from the moment Jericho set eyes on him, he reminded her of her father and, there and then, she signed his death warrant but, first, she’d play with him.
“Play,” her daddy used to say, was so important to his girls.
*
Scott and Jericho were sitting in Scott’s house, and it was looking more than a little run-down. Scott was bemoaning his dwindling supply of bullets.
Jericho was rapidly losing any zeal for him.
Sure, it had been a rush with a guy who just went out and shot cops.
But he was a dour miserable bollix.
Jericho asked,
“You ever think of actually cleaning?”
He looked up, genuinely puzzled, asked,
“Why?”
God in heaven.
She said,
“It’s a kip.”
He thought about that, then,
“Why are you shacked up with that old actress?”
Jericho sighed, said,
“One, her house is clean. She’s rich, it’s the perfect hideaway, but mainly it’s like none of your fucking business.”
He stood up, holding the gun idly in his left hand. He tried to joke,
“Is it smart to diss a guy with a gun?”
She waved a hand, said,
“One less bullet, then.”
He didn’t know how to deal with her and for a moment relished the thought of just shooting her, see how the bitch registered that, but she had a hold on him and he was now afraid of being alone, alone with dwindling ammunition. He asked,
“Where is our burglar?”
Jericho brightened up, a fact not missed by Scott. She said,
“He’s out earning. Something you could think about.”
Scott was counting his few bullets, whined,
“I’m missing one.”
Jericho gave a smug smile, said,
“I, um, lent it to Stapes.”
Before he could answer, she added,
“He doesn’t know I did.”
*
Stapes regarded himself as an artist.
Burglar, if you wanted to be crass,
But a class act.
Okay, okay, he’d been caught but, come on, pure bad luck and, hey, he’d learned.
His first stint in prison had been traumatic but educational. He’d celled with one of the so-called master burglars.
True, he was serving a lengthy stretch so master might be a little bit of a misnomer, but he could sure talk the craft. Used to intone,
1. Work alone (like duh).
2. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
3. Don’t splash the cash.
His big talk was the . . .
Drumroll.
The big score.
Stapes might well have come to this conclusion his own self, but you cell with a guy, you really want to be critical, so he listened,
Like this:
Pass on the usual Micky Mouse shit, wait, research, and then give your all to the one.
When Stapes was leaving, he said to the master,
“You should give one of them TED Talks.”
“Who’s Ted?”
*
Stapes had the new target lined up.
Meaning, he paid a guy for the info, a guy Jericho had introduced him to.
The target was
A large home behind the golf club, nicely secluded,
Rumored to have a legendary painting by Jack B. Yeats,
The Galway Tinkers.
Denied to exist by all the experts.
But if it did . . .
Phew-oh.
Stapes’s new source said in a hushed tone,
“You get that, I’ll give you fifty large right then and there and a percentage of the final sale.”
Fuck.
Like, really?
This particular fence owed a debt to Jericho. This was his way out of the debt, convince Stapes to burgle the house. The fence didn’t ask why. He’d seen Jericho in action and it wasn’t pretty.
Stapes had done his recon.
The occupiers, a couple in their late sixties, played bridge on Wednesday evenings, from seven to nine, so he duly prepared.
Black tracksuit,
Watch cap that pulled down neatly over the face but frigging inclined to heat up,
Large non-logo rucksack,
Surgical gloves.
No weapons.
(Caught with a weapon, add a fast ten to the sentence but, hey, who was getting caught?)
No negative waves.
Dwell on speed.
As he did a last-minute check on his gear, he was assailed by the image of Jericho shooting the barman in the face.
Fuck.
Brutal and beyond belief.
He sat transfixed as she calmly turned to him and Scott, the gun still smoking, and he was sure she was on a spree.
But something flicked across her face and she snapped back to whatever passed for normal in her bizarre world.
There and then Stapes knew:
“She will kill us all, sooner or later.”
And he was done with those crazy fucks.
Focus.
On job in hand.
When he had his cash he’d be in the wind.
Jack Taylor? Jericho had him in her sights so he could simply let her deal with him. He did two fast lines of coke, got the ambience, then moved to boogie.
Getting into the house was so easy he was almost spooked. When it was this simple, he worried.
Moved along the ground floor to the main room and stood back, let out a
Whoosh.
The whole back wall was a mass of paintings, must be close to a hundred.
All framed but not, alas, labeled. He stood for a moment before what seemed a tornado of color, thought,
“Who the fuck is Yeats?”
Took a deep breath, muttered,
“Chill, chill, dude.”
And thanked God for iPhones.
Used the phone to view the picture his source had provided, the source insisting,
“This is from a facsimile as no one has ever seen the actual painting.”
Stapes had wondered,
“The fuck is a facsimile?”
Phone in one hand, he moved along the rows and lines of paintings, the colors starting to ble
nd and whirl, giving him the beginnings of a hard-core headache. He paused.
“Step back, focus.”
And did a wee bit more coke.
The icy dribble down his throat, then he exclaimed,
“Hold the bloody phones.”
Bent down and, there in the left-hand corner, bingo.
His first thought was,
“Are they fucking kidding?”
To him it seemed like a kid’s first attempt at stick figures. He rechecked the phone image, shrugged, muttered,
“The fuck do I know?”
Ripped it from the wall, the coke adding a degree of ferocity that brought plaster and noise.
“Whoops,”
He cried,
Now beginning to have himself a time.
He shoved it into his ruck, then considered snatching half a dozen at random but the weight alone might make it just a tired exercise in futility.
His innate greed wanted to ransack the house but, if his source was right, he already had the prize.
He was well pleased as he headed for the back door, hummed a Pogues tune, no easy feat, and opened the door.
To a sea of blue.
*
Stapes sat in the interrogation room of the Garda station,
His head still reeling from the utter shock of the wave of Guards waiting outside for him.
He could make no sense of it at all.
He was let stew for hours until the door opened and a plainclothes cop walked in, a shit-eating grin on display. He said,
“I’m Sheridan. That’s like the top honcho around here.”
Stapes was further unnerved by the sheer confidence of the guy. This was not going to be one of those get to spill gigs.
This was done and dusted. He was fucked and they weren’t making any attempt to hide their glee. For some bizarre reason, Stapes tried to summon up what he could of legal dramas on TV. Yeah, that desperate. He asked,
“I want a drink, a phone call, and a lawyer.”
Felt he showed a small amount of hard in there.
Sheridan laughed, said,
“That’s priceless, love it.”
He leaned across the chair, whispered,
“Tell you what, even though it’s a huge breach of protocol, I feel today I can risk it.”
Stapes felt a mad stirring of unholy hope and it increased as Sheridan produced a pack of Marlboros. Stapes near wept. A cig would be just freaking near perfect now. He muttered,
“Oh, thank you.”
Sheridan looked puzzled as he withdrew a cig, lit up, inhaled deeply, asked,
“For what?”
Stapes indicated the cigs with what was now a trembling hand.
Sheridan laughed again, a laugh deepened by the nicotine, exclaimed,